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Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Lap around Microsoft Research

They've been there for a while but I had a few moments a couple of daysago and installed some of the toys found athttp://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/. Specifically, Itried out the virtual desktop power toy, the timezone toy, and ScalableFabric. Of the three, the time zone tool is the only one stillrunning. That's because I work with people all over the world and soit's handy to have quick access to their current time.

The virtual desktop power toy sort of worked. I got 4 differentdesktops but I couldn't drag between them so it felt very awkward.Scalable Fabric is a very cool idea although the implementation felthalf done. It certainly felt research quality, which is all it wasadvertised to be. I guess my beef is why don't we see more of thismaterialize in the final Windows product? We use XP for years and thenwait more years for Vista and we still don't have any cool built-invirtual desktop manager? We still can't do any better than the age-oldfolder metaphor?

Apple is making hay these days about Time Machine. While Windows hashad this core feature for a few years now, Microsoft needs to understandthat in a consumer level OS it has a lot to do with presentation. Ihave no doubt that Time Machine is not technically better than PreviousVersions, however it sure looks cooler. Message to Microsoft: we likethat you spend billions on research. Just move some of the more visibleprojects into the final product.